


Black Coffee

by farkenshnoffingottom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coffee, One Shot, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farkenshnoffingottom/pseuds/farkenshnoffingottom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He only ever drank his coffee black.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Or, the one where I made myself ridiculously sad about coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Coffee

He only ever drank his coffee black. He’d grown to quite like the taste. A rough drink for a rough man, one who lived through hell every day. The black drink matched his heavy heart.

  
But his little brother was different. He took his coffee with sugar and cream. The bitter taste didn’t suit him. His little brother wasn’t broken, hardened by a life lived on the road, barely scraping by. The years had treated him well. The goofy grin on his face, the soft, floppy hair, the puppy-dog eyes all reminded the man that his brother had gotten out, and that thought made him smile into his cup.

  
His brother had gone to Stanford. He was going to be a lawyer. He was settling down. He had a girlfriend, and they were happy together.

  
The man felt a fresh wave of jealousy weighing his heart down. He sipped from his coffee cup, one hand on the wheel of his parked car. He watched his brother and his brother’s girlfriend through the window of the little shop. His brother was laughing at something she had said, and the man took another sip of the bitter coffee to fill the empty hole in his bitter heart. He put the cup down, turned his car on, and shifted it into gear, hesitating slightly before he rumbled out onto the road.

  
***

  
When he saw his brother later that night, he hated himself for dragging him back into the dark and dangerous world he had so successfully escaped. But he could not go on with the weight of the world on him alone. He needed his brother.

  
And when they returned to find his girlfriend dead, his brother needed him too.

  
***

  
The man filled up the gas tank as his brother went inside the little shop to get coffee. A new day, a new battle, and they needed to be alert. He got into his car and waited. His brother slid into the passenger side and wordlessly handed him a cup. They nodded at each other, and the man drove out of the gas station and onto the interstate.  
The man and his brother raised the black coffee to their lips and drank, together.


End file.
